ATLANTA – Georgia’s governor and other statewide leaders on Tuesday criticized the Obama administration’s recent directive on transgender students as an abuse of federal authority.
But in his first comments on the issue since Friday’s directive, Republican Gov. Nathan Deal stopped short of pledging legal action, a step demanded by GOP state senators objecting to the guidance that transgender students at public schools must be allowed to use bathrooms and locker rooms consistent with their gender identity.
Senators wrote a letter to Deal this week calling for Georgia to join legal challenges over transgender students’ access to bathrooms at public schools and defend any school district sued individually over the issue. The state’s Republican attorney general, Sam Olens, also made no mention of legal action in a written statement issued Tuesday.
Robbie Medwed, education director for the faith-based LGBT advocacy organization Southern Jewish Resource Network, called the mounting opposition from Georgia Republicans leaders “really disappointing.”
“The directive letter outlines best practices from across the country,” Medwed said. “Far more important than what the governor says or what the president says are the actual facts of the situation: that transgender kids and all kids are safer when transgender kids are treated with respect.”